Mad‘s Al Jaffee…1921-2023 The Spill rarely goes out of its New Yorker-centric orbit, but I simply cannot ignore the passing of Al Jaffee, “King of The Mad Magazine Fold-In,” (according to The New York Times) who died yesterday at age 102. I know that Mr. Jaffee made a run at The New Yorker at some point (or points) in his
Read moreI’m always interested in hearing every New Yorker cartoonist’s story of their first sale to the magazine. It’s a “moment” they’ll never forget. Here’s Victor Varnado talking about his. Mr. Varnado’s first New Yorker cartoon appeared in the issue of July 8, 2019. Visit his website here. And as long as we’re talking about Mr. Varnado…he’s Today’s Daily Cartoonist. See
Read moreA Whither Now? MAD Dartboard MAD was in the news not long ago when it announced it was no longer going to turn out a brand new content-filled magazine, but rely instead on reprinting older material. Now the folks at MAD have (sort of) given its readers a game of choice. The below graphic piece appears in the February 2020
Read moreWhen I think of MAD magazine I think of Alfred E. Neuman, of course, and Al Jaffee’s Fold-In, and Spy vs Spy. For the past twenty years the latter has been in the hands of Peter Kuper. His non-Spy work has been appearing more and more in The New Yorker these days, both the print version (an example above —
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